The Re-invent Democracy Platform and MMT

Proponents of the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) approach to macroeconomics have had many successes since the approach was first synthesized in coherent form by Warren Mosler. There have been successful predictions of economic conditions: much work showing that the historical record accords with the MMT point of view, rather than the views of other approaches and paradigms, and also many instances where representatives of other approaches to economics have suddenly begun to use economic views first put forward by MMT economists.

So, it’s surely true that MMT has been making progress in its quest to become the dominant economic paradigm guiding macroeconomic and fiscal policy in nations. But for some of us writing about issues relating to MMT progress seems painfully slow. A big part of the reason for slow progress is the difficulty of getting MMT views into the mass media consistently, which is seen as a necessary step in getting them popular currency.

This has been difficult, in large part, because the media, including newspapers, major television and radio networks, and major cable networks provide access only to journalists and economists who occupy a relatively narrow spectrum of economic thought encompassing various shades of neoliberalism. When MMT is taken up in media environments, it is written about by journalists or economists who don’t agree with MMT views, and some who approach the subject with the pre-conceived notion that MMT is faintly ridiculous. Naturally, that kind of coverage always contains less than accurate commentary about what MMT writers believe, regardless of whether the articles involved are explicitly critical or purport to be doing a “news” piece on MMT.

MMT economists don’t often break through these filters and get a chance to educate large audiences about MMT, and until this happens I think MMT doesn’t have much chance to become part of the mainstream. MMT will have more successes in the future, and many of its ideas will filter into the mainstream, but I suspect that before MMT ideas are adopted as a basis for policy making in the US, at least, many years will pass.

Certainly, this won’t happen during the Obama Administration, and given her apparent orientation toward “fiscal responsibility,” I think it’s doubtful that MMT will gain a foothold in what is likely to be a coming Hillary Clinton Administration. If that comes to pass, and if the second Clinton period last 8 years, the earliest possible time when MMT might be able to contribute its insights to ending economic stagnation will be no earlier than 10 years from now, a painfully long time, when we consider the 25 million people still lacking full time employment who would like to gain it.

For the sake of those people, for the sake of ending economic stagnation, for the sake of people who need enhanced Medicare for All who won’t be able to have it because “we can’t afford it”, and for the sake of the rapid transition to renewable energy sources, the re-invented infrastructure, and the first class educational system the US badly needs, MMT proponents need to find a way to diffuse our views more rapidly to larger and larger groups of people.

The Re-inventing Democracy Project and the IVCS

Recently, I’ve been writing about development of the IVCS by the Re-invent Democracy Project. The objective of the project is to develop a platform that will provide a bottom-up solution to the growing global democracy crisis. This crisis is a process of gradual takeover of the world’s leading democracies by wealthy corporations and elites driving a globalization process, including the formation of supra-national constraints (such as NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP, TTIP and other trade agreements) on nations, and the people who are supposed to control national policies through political democracy.

The re-inventing democracy project proposes to change this by creating a web platform based on two technology patents specifying an Interactive Voter Choice System (IVCS). As Nancy Bordier puts it:

It enables voters to build voting blocs and electoral coalitions that comprise broad cross-sections of the electorate and can acquire more political influence than political parties.

These blocs and coalitions, which can comprise and align with political parties, can build electoral bases that surpass the voting strength of political parties and their ability to elect candidates of their choice.

Here’s how:

Voters can use the technology to set their legislative agendas, connect with voters with similar agendas and form online voting blocs and electoral coalitions with like-minded voters.

Bloc and coalition members can vote on common agendas and common slates of candidates.

They can reach out to voters across the political and ideological spectrum to negotiate common legislative agendas that cross partisan and ideological lines.

Blocs and coalitions with transpartisan agendas can build transpartisan electoral bases with greater numbers of voting members than the electoral bases of any single political party.

Blocs and coalitions can use these electoral bases to elect their own slates of candidates, and hold their elected representatives accountable at the ballot box for enacting bloc and coalition agendas.

This straightforward summary of what people can do with the IVCS platform is a view from 30,000 feet. It addresses how people can participate in it to grow dominant voting blocs and electoral coalitions. In other words, it is about enhancing one of the two essential functions George Soros identified in The Age of Fallibility that he thinks are necessary for healthy open societies and democracies: the participative function.

In addition, however, the platform also addresses the other key function: the cognitive function of voters. Right now the cognitive function of voters in democracies is compromised by the role of money in politics, because the ability of voters to see and understand reality is severely compromised by the influence over messaging and communications that the money of the financial and business elites buys. More and more, elite-dominated communications create ‘reality’ for Americans and people of other democracies as well. The actual reality of elite performance, the causes and cures of poor outcomes, and the policy possibilities that might improve reality are viewed through a glass darkly, only.

This problem of money in politics threatens democracy and open society because the ability of the people to change leaders is now illusory. Any new political elites elected by the people are just as much influenced by financial and business elites, as the political elites previously “in control” were.

Also, the communications media select the subject matter of “the news” in a way that never threatens the financial and business elites, and that even strengthens their control over the political elites. There are constant distractions by the media from issues of overwhelming importance, and a focus instead on the crisis of the day, or of the week; or the latest horrific shooting, or the reprehensible behavior of some football celebrity, and endless of discussions of what the NFL ought to do about that, while issues of global warming,the double standard applied by law enforcement toward the bankers and the rest of us, and the plight of the unemployed are ignored by comparison.

In addition to enabling voters to increase the extent and effectiveness of their participation in politics, the IVCS platform also enables them to get around the cognitive manipulation that contributes so much to elite control in the present system by providing an environment:

— within which people can organize themselves and others around public policy agendas without needing sizable financial resources from sources external to the IVCS, and without being subject to external mass media communications influenced by financial and business elites and other special interests; and

– that is transparent and inclusive in providing participants with previously developed and newly created data, information, and knowledge, and in allowing them freedom to participate in communicating, organizing, collaborating, critically evaluating, problem solving, and decision making within voting blocs and electoral coalitions.

The IVCS platform provides an alternative global network of social and political relations to the contemporary world of political parties, established interest groups, and astro-turfing organizations. This alternative world also provides an informal communications and knowledge network that is independent of the mass media and its influence.

Mass media-based propaganda campaigns will conflict with, and be critically evaluated by IVCS-based interactions and messaging within informal social networks and voting blocs. The alternative IVCS information world will then work as a meta-layer constraining the prior political and mass media worlds, preventing them from concentrating power in a small group of elites, by subjecting them and their representatives to continuous self-organization, critical evaluation, new emergent candidates for office independent of the prior elites, and a cultural background of new knowledge arising from distributed knowledge processing, including new knowledge creation, in the voting blocs and coalitions.

Since it will cost little more than time to organize and get one’s messages out by using it, the platform will eliminate the need for voting blocs, political parties, and candidates to rely on corporate contributions and special interest campaigns to get support. They’ll be able to spread their message using the facilities of the IVCS alone. The system will de-fang the Citizens United decision, and the influence of special interests more generally, because mass media-based propaganda campaigns will conflict with, and be critically evaluated by IVCS-based interactions and messaging within informal social networks and voting blocs.

How IVCS and the Re-inventing Democracy Project Will Accelerate the Diffusion of MMT

The IVCS platform can provide an environment in which MMT proponents can create and join voting blocs and electoral coalitions and find a level playing field on which to communicate the MMT paradigm, with no advantage given to neoliberal, or neoclassical, or any other economic approaches. Here’s why.

— In the IVCS environment, voting blocs will self-organize from the bottom-up. As they grow larger their agendas will begin to include fiscal policies. Ideas about what fiscal possibilities to adopt will compete on all fours within the voting blocs. There will be no blocking of access for MMT ideas or ideas from any other economic approach.

There will be no barriers set up by mass media elites and no buying of channels of communication within voting blocs, or outreach efforts within the IVCS environment. There will be no institutional structure with a systematic bias against MMT or any other approach.

— External organizations that buy advertising on the IVCS web site, will have to show that their ads are truthful. Rigorous fact-checking procedures, excluding blatant distortions of reality, will be employed, and advertising that isn’t truthful will be rejected by Re-invent Democracy’s fact-checking panels.

I wonder how organizations that project out Government liabilities for entitlements will be able to take ads, when RDI’s fact-checkers insist that their organizations reformulate those ads to include future Government assets as well as future liabilities? I wonder how they’ll be able to cope with a request asking them to value the asset of the Government’s capability under the Constitution to create whatever money is needed to meet its obligations? It will be interesting to see how these organizations will cope with such problems when they want to advertise on the IVCS platform. But, maybe they just won’t want to advertise on the IVCS platform since they can lie in mass media outlets all they like.

The IVCS provides a comprehensive knowledge and information processing platform. The more people do their political participation and organizing within the IVCS platform, the more they will get their knowledge and information from within the IVCS platform itself. But, it’s important to understand that IVCS doesn’t provide a monolithic environment for knowledge processing. Instead, each voting bloc and electoral coalition will have its own knowledge base that it has generated through its own internal processes and activities. So, many alternative understandings of reality will co-exist within the IVCS platform, and none will be dominant, just because it has the power of money.

If you want to learn more about the project to bring this web platform for re-inventing democracy to fruition, and how it can restore the ability of democracies to change their leaders, then please go to reinventdemocracy.net, and reinventdemocracyfoundation.net for more information.

23 responses to “The Re-invent Democracy Platform and MMT”

Bravo! I’m all in Joe. The apt parallel is the communication revolution of the 17th Century. “It is well known that from the eve of the Civil War there was a sudden and dramatic surge in the output of the press. As censorship controls broke down following the meeting of the Long Parliament in late 1640, there was a great explosion if pamphlet and other printed materials, discussing a wide range of political, constitutional, and religious topics, and it is probably not too controversial to assert that the English Revolution of the mid-seventeenth century was accompanied by a concomitant media revolution.” (Harris 52) http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/infotech/asg/ag14.html

If anyone is interested in a penetrating analysis about the connection between democracy and Government, I would recommend John Garrett’s book “Westminster – does Parliament work” As a member of the British Parliament for many years, he has written a detailed explanation of how the political party system that is part and parcel of the Westminster system of Government, undermines the ability of democracy to flourish. As the US government system is really based on the Westminster system of Government, despite the US being a Republic and the UK being a Monarchy, both systems have their roots in Westminster.
Garrett’s book does provide a blueprint for practical reforms in law, proceedings and Parliamentary responsibility to uphold democratic principles.

I like this concept but still don’t understand how it will work. If there is a dialog on these sites, how do you keep the right wing out of it. From what I’ve seen their bloggers sit on the internet 24 hours a day and their goal is not to have dialog. It’s to destroy or confuse dialog. They make up any facts they need to support their positions and just try to crate havoc.

We don’t intend to keep them out of it. They can and will form their own voting blocs, but when they do, if they want to grow, then they’ll have to be willing to compromise their positions to form popular policy agendas in common with other individuals and voting blocs. We don’t think they’ll be both able to grow beyond a certain point without their propaganda advantages fueled by big money (which they won’t have in the IVCS environment). They can lie all they want!

Joe…Glad to see the series of posts on IVCS and the Reinventing Democracy project, including this one exploring its relevance to the task of increasing MMT’s influence in public policymaking and the public’s understanding of policy issues and options.

Though various commenters here and elsewhere have pointed to limits and challenges related to the ability of the IVCS to achieve its ambitious goals, my sense is that it has taken and can continue to take significant steps toward designing a platform for political/electoral system transformation, one that can help MMT and other important progressive policy perspectives not only move forward, but also become more effectively integrated in an evolving political platform that is embraced by a majority of voters (including a growing number of traditionally alienated “non-voters”) and is also a truly practical and adaptable approach to addressing the web of interrelated problems we face as a society.

One related issue I see is that if active participation in an IVCS-enabled system requires Internet access, then it’s important that this access is affordably and reliably available to all citizens. That is still not the case today. So I’d suggest making universal, affordable high-speed Internet access (and related issues like net neutrality, privacy, security, etc.) a key component of any progressive platform development, especially one that relies on online platforms like the IVCS.

Mitch, an interesting aspect of IVCS which we don’t write about much is that it is a Knowledge Management application for democracy. As I’m sure you know, KM has developed in an organizational context, and most of the field believes that Knowledge Management is a function under the CEO. However, in Democratic systems society’s KM function can’t work for the Chief Executive, because whoever is serving in this role may not want to maximize society’s capability for adaptive problem solving and integrating the solutions into the political system. So how does one solve that problem?

IVCS not only provides facilities for voters to formulate legislative agendas and create voting blocs and electoral coalitions outside the channels of the current political system, but it also provides a variety of facilities to help them upgrade their problem solving and knowledge integration capabilities. That’s why I say it is a Knowledge Management application at its heart.

Thanks for that additional perspective Joe. I’ve started reading some of the material on your KM website and was trying to get my head around how KM could be applied to a democratic political system with varied goals, interests, factions and lacking the clarity and specificity of shared goals and non-democratic top-down decisionmaking typically found in business organizations. A topic definitely worthy of more thought….and a practical goal worth pursuing before it’s too late to for us humans to make good use of it in addressing issues like climate change.

I think it’s a great idea, however I still wonder if this can keep the money completely out the politics. What concerns me (and, I will admit I haven’t done the math here yet) is the possibility of corporations paying large numbers of individual people to support positions they have interests in. That could be more difficult to police than a handful of corrupt politicians. By what mechanism could this possibility be precluded? The seductive power of money is very powerful and I don’t doubt that with so much poverty in the world people might be persuaded to argue against their own best interest; in fact i think they do this already without being paid when they buy into and support neoliberal propaganda.

I take your point, and I think it is a good one. But I think you have to visualize the way the IVCS will work. They’ll pay large number of people to propose agendas alright, and try to begin voting blocs. But how will they get the large number of people who they won’t pay to join those voting blocs, unless the people they’ve bought are willing to compromise with others who don’t share their views?

I don’t think they’ll be able to manage that in the absence of their media manipulation, and given the presence of people who will want the voting blocs they join to reflect their own agendas, rather than just the agendas of the large corporations and the rich. We see the voting blocs as very dynamic and as having shifting memberships since it will be easy for the dissatisfied members to leave a voting bloc or coalition and enter another. Voting blocs that reflect the opinions of the rich on the social safety net, unemployment, Medicare for All, voter suppression, Citizens United and other critical issues on which the public largely agrees, won’t be able to get large enough to win elections. So money spent by the rich to try to dominate the IVCS environment, will be wasted. When they see, they’ll just leave.

I only scanned the site briefly, but from your description this sounds like an excellent idea. I have wondered about this very possibility given the communicative powers of the internet, lets give it a shot!

MMT works because it’s how things work. No matter what your politics are. No matter the social agenda du jour. (Read Marriner Eccles appearance before the Senate in February 1933, three years before Keynes published his General Theory, for his incredibly clear explanation of how money works in the US system, and he makes allowances for the gold standard in place then, which he was doubting the efficacy of.)

The power of MMT is that it stands apart from political and social agendas: that is the appeal to common folk in our highly politicized US world. How do I know this? This is precisely the tack I take with telling people about MMT. They’re willing to listen if I’m not sneaking in a political view they’re opposed to, or a social program they are vehemently against. And I get asked those questions: do I have to be a Republican/Democrat to believe this? People can use banks and invest money without establishing their political, religious, or social views at the counter. Eccles was a Mormon; hell, they believe they will reunite on the planet Varumphdumph.

NEP is increasingly attaching MMT to pet political and social directions. You’re going to fail.

People, the stakeholders of this country, are smart enough to figure out what they want to do once you show them how the federal monetary system really works. Once they get that clarity. (Which hasn’t happened yet.)

And isn’t that the founding idea of democracy?

Knowledge of MMT is a tool. You guys need to figure out how to hand it to them.

All the people who write on this blog–I’m not talking about the publication of econ papers; scholarly is different–need to start talking to the people who don’t believe you and find out what their objections are. Listen to them, and then answer those questions.

My view is based on the MMT literature, not on claims that MMTers make about themselves, or on a methodological interpretation that the descriptive can be entirely separated from the normative. I’ve refuted that position here. You say the power of MMT is in its description of how the world works. But, I say that its power lies in all its aspects including its commitment to progressive values and policies.

As time goes on, we will see who is right. However, please consider these points 1) if the MMT description is so powerful, then why doesn’t it instantly persuade most people? And 2) since you think the power of frameworks or approaches lies in description, then why is it that people like George Lakoff are always talking about the power of good framings that elicit favorable emotional responses? Clearly the power of approaches and frameworks lies just as much in their value and emotive framings as in their descriptive aspects.

MMT as an approach is tied closely to the idea of public purpose. Public purpose isn’t a value neutral idea, it is value impregnated and those who use the term normally define it a way that emphasizes progressives objectives and value gaps between those objectives and reality.

I contend that it is much more than that and that it is an approach that fuses fact and value, descriptive and normative. This piece too, is relevant to my specification of MMT.

You’re jumping the gun, darlin’. Slow down. Invite the ignorant. And be respectful.

You say the power of MMT is in its description of how the world works. But, I say that its power lies in all its aspects including its commitment to progressive values and policies.

You lose the people. Start at the beginning.

However, please consider these points 1) if the MMT description is so powerful, then why doesn’t it instantly persuade most people?

Because you’ve done a profoundly lousy job of casting it properly, and I am a 1000% fan of MMT saying this to you. You guys sound like obfuscators and you are disrespectful towards those less intelligent than you. You’re mean and dismissive. You don’t keep to the talking points. Warren does.

then why is it that people like George Lakoff are always talking about the power of good framings that elicit favorable emotional responses?

Because you’re an intellectual who needs to drop the excellent–I love him–George Lakoff and deal with those you want to convince. LISTEN TO THEM. Talk to them. Get off your high horse.

Clearly the power of approaches and frameworks lies just as much in their value and emotive framings as in their descriptive aspects.

Spare me the tedium.

MMT as an approach is tied closely to the idea of public purpose.

It IS public purpose.

Public purpose isn’t a value neutral idea, it is value impregnated and those who use the term normally define it a way that emphasizes progressives objectives and value gaps between those objectives and reality.

Speak English, and talk to the American people. 45 million are out of work, effectively.

This Comment is directed at MRW’s last reply. The normal reply buttons are gone, so I’m having to respond this way.

You begin your latest reply to me with a quote out of context:

I contend that it is much more than that and that it is an approach that fuses fact and value, descriptive and normative. This piece too, is relevant to my specification of MMT.

and then go on with:

You’re jumping the gun, darlin’. Slow down. Invite the ignorant. And be respectful.

Well, Martin, if you recall, I started my reply to you by saying:

What you say depends on how one defines/specifies MMT. So, you’re begging the question by assuming that MMT is merely and purely a description of how the current system works. I contend that it is much more than that and that it is an approach that fuses fact and value, descriptive and normative. This piece too, is relevant to my specification of MMT.

Now, I don’t see what’s disrepectful about that. Perhaps you might explain why it is to everyone this thread. Nor do I see that it’s “jumping the gun.” You made a claim about what’s in the MMT approach. I disputed that claim, made an alternative claim and gave you some references. Seems to me that’s a perfectly legitimate and respectful way to begin a reply. Indeed, it is your tone that is disrespectful and uncivil, and it is you who has deliberately taken your quotation of my reply out of context, so you can divert attention from the fact that you don’t speak to my criticism that you are begging the question.

You then say:

You lose the people. Start at the beginning.

I’m afraid I don’t know who “the people” are you’re referencing here. The people I’m writing for here are the people who attend this site and comment on its posts. I have started at the beginning of my characterization of MMT for those people, in the links I gave to my prior posts. There’s no need for me to repeat that beginning here, since they are perfectly capable of following hyperlinks.

Next, you say:

Because you’ve done a profoundly lousy job of casting it properly, and I am a 1000% fan of MMT saying this to you. You guys sound like obfuscators and you are disrespectful towards those less intelligent than you. You’re mean and dismissive. You don’t keep to the talking points. Warren does.

First, I’m a great admirer of Warren’s and his talking points, and certainly think that he’s brilliant. But we all can’t be Warren, nor should we be, because different people write for different purposes and for different audiences.

Second, You say that we “guys” are mean and dismissive and disrespectful. Does that mean you think that Stephanie Kelton, and Pavlina Tcherneva aren’t disrespectful, but only we “guys?” If not, then when have you seen either one write anything disrespectful. Care to supply quotes? If so, which “guys? I take it you mean to include Randy Wray, Bill Mitchell, Marshall Auerback, Scott Fulwiler, Bill Black, Eric Tymoigne, the various other bloggers at this site, other MMT bloggers at other sites, and me? That’s a pretty serious charge. Can you document it with quotes from various people?

And in those relatively few cases when MMT writers may be less than respectful to commenters, are the MMTers initiating a disrepectful exchange, or are they just giving back what they’re getting? And if the latter, then why ought they to be respectful to others who have been disrespectful to them? Is it a requirement of the rules of civility to turn the other cheek?

I’m sorry you think that we collectively have done a lousy job of casting MMT properly. Unfortunately, your idea of what is proper “casting” seems to be to present MMT as pure description. However, that is exactly the point we are disagreeing about. So, again, you are begging the question.

Next, you begin the following exchange with a quote out of context in mid-sentence:

then why is it that people like George Lakoff are always talking about the power of good framings that elicit favorable emotional responses?

and then replied:

Because you’re an intellectual who needs to drop the excellent–I love him–George Lakoff and deal with those you want to convince. LISTEN TO THEM. Talk to them. Get off your high horse.

I really don’t think this is responsive to my point which was:

And 2) since you think the power of frameworks or approaches lies in description, then why is it that people like George Lakoff are always talking about the power of good framings that elicit favorable emotional responses? Clearly the power of approaches and frameworks lies just as much in their value and emotive framings as in their descriptive aspects.

In your reply above you say that I need to “deal with those you want to convince,” when I’ve basically said that MMT needs to deal with people using framings that are not purely descriptive, but as Lakoff said, are also emotive and evaluative. So, Lakoff, who you say you love, is saying the opposite of what you’re saying, and you’re again trying to beg the question about the issue I raised which is that MMT goes beyond pure description and contains emotive and evaluative components. Further, I don’t see how advocating this puts me on any high horse. In fact, if anyone’s on a high horse it’s you, since you’re the one adopting a clear “I’m OK, you’re not OK” position in our exchanges.

You also say of MMT that:

It IS public purpose.

But, this claim then contradicts your earlier point that MMT is purely descriptive, because “public purpose” is an idea that involves values and value judgments. If you think this isn’t true, then I’ll refer you to John Kenneth Galbraith, and his treatment of the idea in Economics and The Public Purpose. The MMT view that economics should serve the public purpose comes from Galbraith the elder, and it occupies a prominent place in Warren’s work.

Finally, in response to my statement:

Public purpose isn’t a value neutral idea, it is value impregnated and those who use the term normally define it a way that emphasizes progressives objectives and value gaps between those objectives and reality.

you say:

Speak English, and talk to the American people. 45 million are out of work, effectively.

That is English, and perfectly understandable to you and the people who attend and comment at NEP. I wouldn’t use that language in something I’m writing for all the American people. Nor would I use it when I’m writing for the roughly 26 million who are un- or underemployed. But here at NEP I’m writing for only a small segment of them, and also for well-educated readers from other nations, and I think, rightly, that this segment of the world’s population, knows perfectly well what I’m saying in the quote which you don’t think is “English.”